Officer under investigation after using pepper spray

A former Chandler police officer now working as a Pinal County detention officer is under internal investigation after using pepper spray on a detainee.

Dan Lovelace, who was at the center of two wrongful-death suits that cost Chandler more than $4.6 million, was hired by the Pinal County Sheriff's Office in mid-2009. A Sheriff's Office statement said Lovelace used a "short burst of pepper spray" on an ICE detainee after he had defecated on the floor of a holding area and did not respond to officers' commands Dec. 11.

Lovelace has been transferred to another position within the department and has no contact with inmates until the investigation is complete. In 2002, he shot and killed a woman trying to fill a forged prescription at a drug store, and he was involved in a high-speed chase in 2000 that killed a student.